DETROIT – Willie Harmon was sentenced Thursday to at least 12 years in prison for the deadly shooting of his niece.
Kendra Gardner, 25, was found shot in the head on Dec. 29, 2016 at a home in the 14400 block of Fordham on Detroit's east side. Police said her 65-year-old uncle shot her.
Another woman inside the home was able to disarm the man, police said. Harmon was taken into custody and later charged with second-degree murder and felony firearm.
The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office said he and his niece were at a social gathering with other occupants of the house when Harmon became combative. After a brief verbal argument, Harmon and Gardner allegedly went to another room where she was fatally shot, according to the Prosecutor's Office.
Harmon was charged with second-degree murder and felony firearm. A jury found him guilty on Sept. 20.
He was sentenced Thursday to a minimum 12 years and maximum 30 years in prison. That was after an emotional plea for closure from Gardner's mother, Kim Patton.
"When he took my baby's life, he destroyed me. He destroyed my siblings," Patton said.
Gardner's uncle and a family friend also gave statements, recalling Gardner as a kind young woman who had her whole life ahead of her. Harmon's defense attorney, however, said Gardner threatened to "beat Willie's ass" that night.
Harmon also spoke in court Thursday. The Army veteran said he thought Gardner was a good person, "but when she got to drinking she wasn't a good person." He told the court he wished he could turn back the hands of time but he can't.
"Sorry that your daughter's dead. I had no intention of (doing this) whatsoever," he said. "She was a good person, until she started drinking ... she was a good person. But when she got to drinking, she wasn't a good person. My life is over ... I'm 66 years old ... if I could turn back the hands of time, I would, but that's something I cannot do."
Heavy drinking and guns
Judge Mark Slavens called the case "very, very tragic" and pointed to the dangers of drinking with firearms.
"Because it's so senseless. It shows the great dangers that arise when you have the combination of excessive drinking and guns, and how dangerous that whole situation becomes" he said.
Slavens said testimony revealed there was heavy drinking by a group of people the night of Gardner's murder. The judge took issue with Harmon calling Gardner a "bad person" when she was drunk, as if somehow trying to justify her death. Slavens discussed testimony which revealed Harmon was drunk that night and was acting defiantly as Gardner tried to help him to bed.
"He was so intoxicated that he fell off a bar stool. And then the young lady who takes him, that now he says there are problems with her past ... I want him to remember that this young lady took him and tried to shepherd him into bed. And then he came back, sat on the bar stool again, and then he fell off again. She took him, and took him into the bed, and put him in the bed, this person that now he says has problems in her past. I don't accept that about her. She did not deserve to die ... she was being a good person. And she took you to the (bedroom) and she put you to bed," said the judge.
Slavens then discussed the shooting itself before handing down the sentence.
"You take a gun which you state didn't have a bullet in it, and then rack a bullet in it, and then shoot her in the head and kill a 25-year-old woman. You have destroyed two families," said the judge.
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